Stone and Hall enter a one-story house, but inside find an elderly woman who committed suicide by hanging herself from a second-floor railing.
On the Wildfire layout diagram, the baby and the old man are shown to be descending in elevators in the central core. When Dr. Hall later goes into the central core, there are no elevators in the indicated places.
When searching for the capsule in the first scene, the men raise the parabolic receiver on the van. The plotter then plots vectors on the map, but the lines are already there, clearly showing the exact location of the capsule.
What's left of the oxygen mask recovered at the crash site is a completely different type to the one the pilot was wearing before the crash.
Getting in and out of the "tunnel suits" is by far not as easy as shown in the film, and certainly not possible in the time depicted. Getting into the boots alone by simply jumping into them (as depicted) is not possible.
The screen showing the distribution of elements in the samples goes by atomic number, but skips over neon (10) for some reason. (It can't be because of lack of neon; other elements are indicated with a 0 or -.) The book does the same, in fact leaving out further noble gases (except helium), as if they were exempt from analysis.
Because at least some of the strain has mutated into a non infectious state, the scientists believe it all has, an incredibly improbable situation.
When the scientists are choosing filters to determine the size of the organism, the 1 and 2 micron filters are labeled "1M" and "2M". The scientific abbreviation for micron is "u" or the Greek letter "mu".
The scene showing technicians troubleshooting a Teletype and missing a sliver of paper wedged between the machine's bell and clapper is unlikely. The bell in the type of machine depicted is located where such debris could not possibly fall onto it.
The vertical stabilizer of the jet at the crash site is not from a F-4 Phantom, but from a F-100 Super Sabre. Also the cockpit section is from that plane type.
When entering the research facility, Dr Ruth Leavitt has her glasses taken from her. She claims if she doesn't have them replaced she will need to use a cane. In one of the following scenes she is seen reading aloud from a manual without the aid of any glasses. Short-sighted people are often able to read up close while having problems navigating.
When Dr. Hall is being scanned, you can see in the reflection on the screen that he is wearing an athletic supporter.
When Dutton, Stone and Hall walk towards the electrostatic decontaminator, they are shown full-body from the rear to be nude entering the chamber. The next scene, tastefully blurred and solarized, still shows Dutton and Stone wearing athletic supporters, and Hall wearing bikini underwear.
When the two scientists are first exploring the town, we see a shot of a priest lying dead on the steps of a church, eyes wide open. Right before the scene cuts, the supposedly dead priest stops his dead-eyed stare and looks to the right, obviously moving both eyes.
The lips of the dead man in the barber's chair in Piedmont can be seen moving in the close shot.
At the crash site of the Phantom F-4, the tail section of the crashed aircraft is that of an F-100. Also the cockpit section shown is from a F-100 jet fighter.
We hear a recording of the fighter pilots' last transmissions as his oxygen mask is dissolving. However, in the earlier scene that actually shows the masking disintegrating, the pilot is not speaking at all.
In the opening credits, a typewritten page includes text from the Wildfire facility technical proposal, later read aloud. A handwritten correction adds the word "nuclear" marked with a line and arrow to indicate its placement in the text, but it points between "with" and "a" which reads out of order as "equipped with nuclear a device for self destruction."
When Dr. Hall enters the lab after the microbe breach in Autopsy, he's told that it's been 3 minutes since Dr. Dutton was exposed. But Hall was in the corridor dealing with Dr. Leavitt's grand mal seizure, which happened after the microbe breach, so the timing in the script makes no sense.
A close-up of the crying baby found in the town by the recon scientists shows the face of a baby that is obviously not crying as the soundtrack portrays.
After the two scientists in hazard suits are dropped-off in Piedmont, there is a shot of the helicopter hovering overhead, yet the sound effect is that of a helicopter flying away. Moments later the helicopter does fly away slowly.
When they first subject the lab animals to the virus, on the right hand side of the screen in the reflection of the metal walls you can see the crew rushing towards the monkey cage to revive him right before they cut back to the shot of the scientists.
Reflections of the camera team and some studio lights can be seen in the glass visor of the scientist's helmet, right after his initial encounter with the old man.
(at around 49 mins) Dr. Charles Dutton walks in and lands on a camera mark under the console.
According to the map shown after the Situation Room scene, Wildfire was located in southern Clark County, Nevada, 46 miles from downtown Las Vegas, 34 miles from the Hoover Dam, and only five miles from Searchlight, Nevada (the smaller black dot below Wildfire); notably closer than 112 miles from any "...inhabited area..." as stated in the dialogue.
At the beginning of the movie, vultures are shown circling over the town of Piedmont. Later, when the two scientists approach the town in a helicopter, the vultures are on the ground eating the flesh of the dead. The military even brought gas to kill off the vultures so they wouldn't fly off and spread the disease. What's interesting, is that no one gives a second thought as to why the vultures weren't dead. Even after they kill off a rat and monkey in the lab to test the disease no one wonders how it was that the vultures weren't affected. It is not unusual, in fact rather typical, for pathogens or chemicals to affect some species and not others, or at least affect them more slowly.
The bell in the teletype machine would not have been completely silenced by the sliver of paper. The man in the control room would still have heard the quieter bell, especially if this was his "only one job".
There was no point in having Dr. Ruth Leavitt study the growth of Andromeda in the Petri dishes because the software had already determined which samples showed no growth otherwise it wouldn't have been able to display the message that caused her seizure. So she was totally unnecessary to the whole process and could have all been handled by the computer.
Considering the fact that Wildfire boasted 'entire rooms operated like glove boxes', the whole depicted complicated scientist decontamination procedure doesn't make any use. The scientists and the organism are always hermetically separated, therefore bacteria carried in on the body will never interfere with the research.
Hall and Stone believe nobody in Piedmont survived except the baby and the old man Jackson and thus the town is to be nuked. However, they had only limited time to do a cursory search of the town, and that was while they were primarily searching for the Scoop. They found the baby with just luck and Jackson found them. There could easily be other survivors.
Boom mic reflection on level 1 red wall in conference room behind self destruct mechanism key insert. A minute later, boom shadow on wall behind actors as they discuss the odd man out theory. (:45 minutes in)
When they are using the filter to determine the organisms size, a1 micron filter doesn't allow it through but a 2 micron one does. The scientist then tells the others that the thing is "about 2 microns in diameter." The facts can only support the conclusion that the thing is greater than 1 micron and smaller than 2 microns.
Dr. Ruth Leavitt pronounces "nuclear" as "nucular" which is a common mistake, but would not be expected from a noted person of science.
At the jet fighter crash site, a helicopter lands and one of its passengers vigorously slams two of its doors shut. This would never happen with experienced passengers. A helicopter's doors are light, fragile, and expensive. Thus one of the first rules of helicopter travel is to never slam the doors.